


Some Assembly Required, Batteries Not Included

by golden_gardenias



Series: Gallavich Week 2014 [5]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Daddies, Future Fic, Gallavich Week, M/M, Talking About Having Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2004192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_gardenias/pseuds/golden_gardenias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you ever think about having kids?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Assembly Required, Batteries Not Included

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gallavich Week 2014 Day 6: Daddy!Gallavich. Originally published on Tumblr 6/21/14.
> 
> Maybe five years in the future. Yevgeny doesn't exist.

“Do you ever think about kids?”

The question was posed as they drifted off to sleep in their bed, wrapped around each other.  Mickey opened his eyes in shock.  “Uh…what about them?”

“Having them, stupid,” Ian answered, smiling.

Mickey bit his lip.  “Not really, no.”

Ian nodded, as if he’d expected that answer.  “Why, do you?” Mickey asked.

He shrugged.  “Sometimes.  Don’t you think it would be nice to have little mini-mes running around?”

“Getting dirty, messing with our shit, drinking our beer…”

Ian rolled his eyes.  “Oh come on, Mick.  You’ve really never thought about it?”

The honest and open look in Ian’s eyes made Mickey want to lie.  He wanted to assure him that they wanted the same things, that they weren’t pulling in completely different directions, but…

Children.

Tiny humans who would scream and cry and poop all day.

Little miniature people that they would be responsible for for the rest of their lives.

If they made even one mistake, they could be raising a serial killer.  Or a rapist.  Or a politician.

Or they could wind up killing the damn thing.

“Kids are a lot of responsibility, Ian,” he trailed off.  “Do you really think you’re ready for all that?”

“ _We_ ,” he corrected.  “And yeah, I do.”

He was smiling again, and that smile combined with the hope shining in his eyes made it virtually impossible for Mickey  to say anything negative because  _fuck_ , when did Gallagher get so damned pretty?  And Jesus, when did Mickey get so soft?

“I…I’ll think about it, alright?” he conceded.  “No guarantees, though,” he warned.

Ian ignored the hardness in his voice and lunged at him, smiling and peppering his face with kisses and whispering breathy “thank you”s over and over again.

He fell asleep with his head pressed into the side of Mickey’s neck, arms and legs wrapped around him like an octopus, smiling.

Mickey hardly slept at all.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t really think very often.  At least not the kind of thinking something this important required.  He didn’t weigh the pros and cons, didn’t reflect on how various decisions would affect his life, didn’t contemplate the future.

But now he was thinking so much he was giving himself migraines.

The list he’d been carrying around in his head for the past two weeks had grown extensively to this:

 

Cons—

  * Expensive as hell

  * Always need shit

  * Too much responsibility

  * Too much liability

  * No instruction manual

  * The world doesn’t need more assholes

  * Or Milkoviches

  * Or douchebags

  * Kids are dirty

  * And annoying

  * No return policy

  * No feedback

  * They break shit

  * They’re always sticky

  * Ask stupid questions

  * Some assembly required

  * Batteries not included




Pros—

  * Gallagher would be happy

  * Happy Gallagher means more sex

  * But angry Gallagher means better sex




 

Shit.

He would have to rethink this list.

 

* * *

 

Another two weeks and some observations of parents with their kids called for the following additions.

 

Cons—

  * They’re fucking ungrateful whiny brats

  * They piss themselves

  * They’re greedy

  * They’re stingy




Pros—

  * They could look like Ian

  * They sometimes do heart-meltingly sweet shit that makes their parents cry proud, loving tears or whatever girly shit Kev was spouting

  * They bring you beer so you didn’t have to walk to the fridge




 

He thought this edition was a vastly improved version, but still somehow left something to be desired.

 

* * *

 

“You ever think about kids?”

He was sitting with his sister in the living room of the house they grew up in, sharing a joint and watching stupid sitcoms.

She turned to him with an incredulous look on her face.  “Why the fuck would I do that?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “Ian asked me about it.”

“He wants to have kids?”

He nodded.

“Doesn’t surprise me, with that big family he’s got,” she mused.

“We’ve got a big family too,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but our family’s not like theirs.  We’re not…close.”  She paused to take a drag.  “Dad beat that out of us.  And you know that if our parents had been flaky like theirs, Tony wouldn’t have done shit for us.  Not like Fiona did for them.”

Mickey nods his agreement.

“You probably would’ve, though,” she said softly.

He looked at her, confused.  “The fuck you talkin’ ‘bout?”

She shrugged.  “If you’d been born first, things would’ve been different.”

“Different how?”

“Different like you would’ve gotten a steady job so you could get everyone fed, and buy us clothes, and hide us from Dad when he got drunk,” she said matter-of-factly.

He stared at her.  “And what makes you think I would’ve done all that?”

She blew smoke in his face.  “It’s what you always did for me, shithead.”

He looked down, oddly embarrassed.  “You, uh, remember all that?” he asked awkwardly.

“Of course I do, dumbass,” she scoffed.  “You were the best part of my childhood.”

He didn’t know what to say at how genuine her voice sounded, or what to think about all the feelings welling up inside him.  Something was bubbling to the surface, but it hurt, and he instinctively wanted to bottle it down.

Tears pricked his eyes, but he rubbed the heels of his hands against them to keep them at bay.

“You would be a great father, Mick.”

Her voice was still soft and  _fuck_ , Mickey didn’t know what to do or say or feel.  They didn’t talk about important things, they yelled at each other and shared their drugs and got drunk, but  _this_ , this was uncharted territory, and he couldn’t decide how to react.

They were actually having a fucking  _moment_ , both of them avoiding eye contact and shuffling their feet and he didn’t think it should be this awkward, but then again they’d never really done anything the right way.

“I wasn’t always there for you,” he admitted quietly.

She studied him for a moment.  “No,” she agreed, “but you always tried.”

They shared little half smiles and looked away from each other, both knowing their heart-to-heart was over.

She was hardly ever nice, and she wasn’t forgiving, and she was known to be just as blunt and abrasive as he was, but sometimes he was really fucking glad Mandy Milkovich was his little sister.

 

* * *

 

“I thought about kids.”

Ian had just walked into their apartment to find Mickey sitting on the couch, waiting for him, sipping a beer.

“And?” he asked.  Mickey could hear the excitement he was trying to control, knew he was telling himself to be cautious and not get his hopes up.

“Let’s do it.”

Ian beamed at him, eyes glowing so bright it felt like they were shining into his soul and lighting up all the dark parts of him that had been rotting his entire life.

He imagined that smile and those eyes on a small redheaded boy or girl, pictured them asking for candy or ice cream or a present and  _shit_.

He was fucking  _doomed_.


End file.
